30th December 2011 / Musings
So. That was 2011, then.
Another busy year, splitting my time almost 50/50 between comics and games. Here’s a thing; every January I make a list of everything I expect to be working on for the next twelve months, and stick it up over my desk.
Normally, it’s a pretty long list. But for 2011, not so much — a whole videogame only takes up one line, after all, and I knew I’d be working on more games than in previous years. Frankly, I also wasn’t sure what comics I’d actually be writing. There’s been a lot of stuff bubbling under over the past year or so.
But now here we are at year’s end, and what with one thing and another, it turns out the list is no shorter than last year. Funny how things turn out.
January was DEAD SPACE central; the digital release of SALVAGE, the bundling of EXTRACTION with DEAD SPACE 2 on the PS3, and of course the release of DEAD SPACE Mobile on iOS, which recently won a bunch of “game of the year” type awards. Behind the scenes, I was writing more material for BINARY DOMAIN, plotting DAREDEVIL SEASON ONE (not yet announced at that point), and zipped over to California for a meeting with the guys at 2K Games…
…Because I spent most of February writing script lines for the XCOM revamp, which I believe is due for release in March 2012. I know many people have bemoaned that this isn’t a turn-based strategy like the old X-COM games, and I understand; I’m a huge fan of the old games myself. But this new one looks good, and I can’t wait to play it for myself. Oh, I also did some lines for the new version of Adidas MiCoach, along with just about everyone else on my agent’s roster. That was fun, and you’ll understand why when I can reveal whose lines I wrote.
In March I had my head down, working on more XCOM, two WASTELAND scripts, more DAREDEVIL, and plotting what would become my Spider-Island tie-in, THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU. I also went down to Black Rock Studio in Brighton to deliver my Comics to Consoles lecture. Little did I realise it wasn’t just a lecture; it was also an audition to write their newest game. And this month I filmed my segments for CAPTURED GHOSTS, the Warren Ellis documentary now doing the premiere rounds at festivals.
No blog posts in April; I was too busy gallivanting all over the place doing stuff I couldn’t talk about, like another visit to Black Rock, a trip to a European games studio to talk about a game (which still hasn’t even been announced), and then working on things that, again, weren’t yet public knowledge, like DAREDEVIL and DEADLY HANDS.
May saw me dig into “The European Game”, as I’ll refer to it for the moment, in earnest. As if that didn’t keep me busy enough, I also started work on the Black Rock game, Champions Alliance; and ploughed through a bunch more comic scripts.
In June, I pretty much locked myself away to write more comic scripts, more Champions Alliance, more of The European Game. Meanwhile, in the world outside, the new MiCoach was announced (but no details given), and WASTELAND finally went digital on Comixology (woo-hoo!).
Then July rolled around, which of course means the usual pilgrimage to Comic-Con San Diego, where I caught up with lots of old friends, met some cool new people, signed a lot of books, and appeared on the CAPTURED GHOSTS panel. I have to say this was one of the most enjoyable SDCCs ever for me, and while much of that was down to seeing the aforementioned old friends, I can’t help but feel my refusal to take meetings with “The Hollywood Bullshit Brigade” also had something to do with it. So there’s a lesson learned.
I attended the inaugural Manchester MCM Expo, which was busier than anyone sane expected, and DAREDEVIL SEASON ONE was announced at last — at this point I’d almost finished writing it.
I also somehow managed to squeeze in time to write more European Game, some WASTELAND, and more Champions Alliance… right before Disney closed Black Rock because they couldn’t wrap their heads around what the team was trying to do. In my opinion Disney made a big mistake, born out of simple cowardice. Black Rock had a hit on their hands, a game style that nobody doubts the industry needs, but that nobody has yet had the balls to fund because it’s more risky than just bashing out another bloody FarmVille clone. Bah.
Aaaaanyway. In August, THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU launched (to, I’m rather proud to say, much critical acclaim), and I did a DJ set at the Travelling Man birthday party, which was awesome (the party, not my set. Well, OK, that was pretty awesome too). Thanks to the Black Rock closure, this was also the first month of the year I found myself with a small amount of free time — so I started writing DEAD OF WINTER, the sequel to THE COLDEST CITY (more on that later). I also worked up a SHANG-CHI pitch at Marvel’s request, hoping to launch off the back of DEADLY HANDS, but if you follow Marvel news at all you can guess what the chances of that are right now. Sad, but there you go.
September was another month of nose/grindstone interface, as I wrote the script for The European Game — twice! — then finished DAREDEVIL SEASON ONE, made progress on DEAD OF WINTER, and started a short prose piece which is very cool, but (all together now) I can’t talk about yet. I know, I know…
This month also saw the long-awaited (and very-very-late) release of WASTELAND #31. For those keeping score, at this point I was scripting #38 and Justin was already onto drawing #36. So now you know why we’re so confident about keeping the new schedule in 2012, see below…
In October I put in a brief appearance at the London MCM Expo, did a quick panel on games writing at the London Screenwriter’s Festival, and popped over to Europe again for meetings about The Game. Somehow, in the midst of all this, I also wrote more WASTELAND, more DEAD OF WINTER, and more of the Secret Prose Story.
In November we announced the WASTELAND soft relaunch and monthly schedule for 2012. And promptly saw a lot of (completely understandable) scepticism from readers in reaction; but see above for why we remain confident. As I write, Justin is pencilling #38, the final issue of the arc…! Meanwhile, I was already midway into writing the following arc of WL, and also got my head down to scribble away at The European Game and the Secret Prose Story.
So here we are in December, and it’s been a month of ups and downs. The biggest down was without question the sad news of Eduardo Barreto’s death. The ups include finishing draft one of the Secret Prose Story, writing a short WASTELAND script for Chris Mitten to draw for Free Comic Book Day 2012, a trip to London for meetings about writing a new game, composing a new WASTELAND Original Soundtrack song (“March of the Sand-Eaters”, a jolly and tuneful little ditty *cough cough*), and signing graphic novel contracts for something that will hopefully be announced soon YES I SAID SOON MY LIFE IS ONE GIGANTIC NDA NOW LEAVE ME ALONE
Ahem.
Last but not least, I’m within sight of the finish line on DEAD OF WINTER. I haven’t talked much about THE COLDEST CITY since it was announced, some time back, because there hasn’t been much to tell; we suffered some delays, and were just trying to get the book finished before revealing much more. Well, it is finished, and currently going through production. It’ll be on sale in 2012 (May, I think?) and it looks fantastic. More on that very soon, when we start the PR blitz.
…And that’s it for another twelve months. I’m off to see my family and bake cakes, not necessarily in that order. Have a great New Year, everyone, and I’ll see you on the other side.
Archives
RSS Feed
